Birthday Celebrations!

We’ve kicked October off with lots of celebration!! On October 4, Ru entered a new decade. That’s right, it was the big 3-0 birthday, with Than’s 29th the very next day. I love birthdays – it’s fun to have something to celebrate and I’m always reminded around my birthday how important celebration is. I want to make a more intentional effort in the coming year to do more celebrating – big and small things alike, there is so much worth celebrating!

Our birthday weekend was filled with special treats, presents, a fancy dinner in Malibu overlooking the ocean, shopping, and the Star Trek movie (Than’s choice). In celebration of his special day I even stayed awake for the whole thing! We alternate who plans the celebrations each year. He did the planning this year and I was beyond spoiled!

The next week I spent a few days down in Orange County at the Exponential West conference promoting Alpha. It’s always fun to be out and about, away from my desk. Christian conferences are always a reminder of what a small world it is. At this conference I ran into one of the worship leaders from my church in Chicago, a whole team of people from my current church and a fellow Cedarville grad!

Somewhere in the midst of all that I came down with a really bad cold. Normally a cold is not exactly blog worthy material, but this was the first time either of us had been really sick since getting married. Than took very good care of me while I was sick and now nearly 2 weeks, 1 pack of antibiotics, 3 boxes of kleenex, 3 varieties of cough drops and some bright blue cough syrup later, I just have a lingering cough at nighttime.

This past week my mom and aunt have been in town. We visited with other family in the area, went whale watching in San Diego, put them to work at the Sunday Community Meal, visited the Getty Villa, had fish ‘n chips on the beach, and sent them off to explore LA while we worked during the days. It’s been fun having visitors all week – and added bonus, they like to do our dishes! Ok maybe they don’t like to do them, but I’m telling you a cup or bowl can’t sit by the sink very long without one of them wandering into the kitchen and making sure they’re done!

Tonight we’ll finish out our week with a Bach concert downtown and then tomorrow we’ll send them back to the chilly weather of Indiana.